Fancy Uploading Your Mind to a Hard Drive? It Might Actually Be Possible

It may sound like the stuff of all-too fanciful science fiction, but there has been plenty of talk in the media and in certain circles lately that mind uploading could be the next logical step for human evolution. It’s a process that pretty much does exactly what it says – it could allow us to preserve our brains for the foreseeable future, and could allow us to live on long after our bodies have expired. If this all sounds too far-fetched or too unnerving to be a potential reality, get ready to hear all about strides that are currently being made.

Gizmodo report that 21st Century Medicine and MIT researchers have found what appears to be a relative breakthrough in efforts to store brain samples for long periods. It’s reported that it is now physically possible for us to preserve minute increments of the mammalian brain – in this case, a pig – meaning that we are now able to study and review how minds work for longer than ever before – and this has led some speculation as to the potential knock-on effect for biostasis.

Biostasis refers to the potential for preserving human life long-term – effectively, allowing us to live on after we have died. There have been a number of projects and schemes set up over the years to develop research into uploading our minds onto hard drives and even into artificial avatars – but this latest breakthrough appears to have really put the cat amongst the pigeons when it comes to approaching a more realistic model for human necromancy. The technique – known as Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation, or ASC, may even allow those willing to wait for mind uploading to come into reality to freeze their brains for decades and centuries to come – all the while retaining all of their memories and their personalities when they come to be resurrected. It’s a rather bizarre thought – but with more and more elements of science fiction having bled into the real world, anything seems possible right now!

Here and now, however, it seems that we at least have a more effective way of being able to monitor and analyse the mammalian brain than ever before – and while we may be centuries away from digitally preserving ourselves or resurrecting one another, it’s nice to be able to dream – is this a scheme that you would enter into?